#he’s also Irish. and so evil. and trying to make his arch nemesis evil.

[mossterious]

Folks why have I blorbo imprinted on an evil 50s wizard for hire from a made for tv sequel, a sequel for a movie that I haven’t even seen. Why???

[cromulentbookreview]

Binge!

It makes sense why we use a term normally associated with food like “binge” to describe that day where you do nothing but watch every episode of that one TV show. You don’t really hear someone say that they’re going on a book binge, though. When referring to a media “binge,” it’s usually always TV, and, to some extent, movies (I once binged all three Extended Editions of Lord of the Rings - it took a day and a half and it was amazing). I think we need to have more book binges in our lives. In fact, there’s even a book review site way more organized and put together than mine will ever be that’s actually called Book Binge. 

Anyway, for me a book binge is when you pick out a series that already has several books out and you read them all, one after the other. I did this earlier this year with Naomi Novik’s amazing Temeraire series. I’m pretty sure it’s why I had to get new lenses for my glasses this year. I’ve been on a historical mystery kick lately - I think it has to do with the season changing from Summer to Fall where I immediately go “get me some 19th Century British Detectives!!” 

Which was how I ended up tearing through all 10 of Will Thomas’s Barker & Llewelyn books.

I’d never heard of the Barker & Llewelyn series until I was traipsing around Goodreads looking for some 19th century mystery fiction. Like my strange obsession with 19th century British dudes on boats, I loves me some 19th century British mystery stories. Initially, I didn’t start out to binge the entire series. 10 books is a lot. I had a hard time with Temeraire, which is also kind of 10 books (9 and a bunch of short stories). There were times with my Temeraire binge where my attention wavered, where I wanted to just put the books down and go read something else, but I pressed on. And I discovered one of the great joys of a true book binge: no agonizing wait for a sequel. No having your interest piqued by book one and then sitting and waiting for a year and a half for the next book. With a book binge, you can put down book two and immediately pick up book three because BOOK BINGE. 

There are a few 19th century British mystery series out there that I’m almost too afraid to start with because they consist of roughly ten thousand books and counting (looking at you, Anne Perry) and there’s no way I’d be able to focus on (or care about) a single series for that many books. So when I saw that the Barker & Llewelyn series consisted of nine books, like Temeraire, (plus a tenth book I’d gotten on Netgalley), and that all of them were under 350 pages, I was like “OK, I’ll give the first book a go, and see what happens.”

Yeah, I may have immediately gone from the first book to the second one. And then the third. And then the fourth and the fifth...I couldn’t stop.

The series is all about our audience surrogate, Thomas Llewelyn, and our substitute Sherlock Holmes, detective private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker. At the start of the series, Llewelyn is 22 and a widow who just spent eight months in Oxford Prison for theft. He’d been set to go places, having gotten a scholarship to Oxford, but the whole prison-sentence thing derailed all his plans. So he ends up in London (where else?) looking for work. After months of failed attempts to get a job (not a lot of job opportunities for ex-cons out there, even in the 1880s), Llewelyn decides to try for one last job before throwing himself into the Thames: an assistant position with a prominent private detective enquiry agent, Cyrus Barker. Barker, like all Great Detective Private Enquiry Agent types, is a Scottish eccentric with a mysterious past who knows everything about anything and anything under the sun. He’s got all sorts of weird scars and gang tattoos. He grew up in China and speaks like, eleventy-one languages. He wears sunglasses all the time. Like, all the time. Apparently he does so even when he sleeps. (Yes, they had sunglasses in the 19th century. No, they’re not called sunglasses in these books, but they’re referred to as his “dark spectacles”). Barker is, of course, filthy rich, and upon hiring the poor, unfortunate and 1000% broke Thomas Llewelyn, immediately provides him with room, board, and a whole new suit of fancy clothes. He also sets about correcting Llewelyn’s behavior and manners, a pretty tall order since Llewelyn is a super snarky Welshman. As far as Watsons go, Llewelyn is definitely one of the more amusing, which makes these books so goddamned fun to read. 

Also, Barker has a butler called Jacob Maccabee, who rivals Llewelyn in his deadpan snarkiness. I ship Llewelyn/Mac so hard - every time they’re in a scene together they just have so much chemistry. I don’t care if Word of God is they are both straight. I just want them to be together and snark at each other all day long..

Uh.

Ahem.

Anyway.

Yes, this series is very much your standard, buddy-detective private enquiry duo present in basically all movies, TV and books, but they’re fun. And you know what we all need right now? Fun. Pure, unadulterated fun where the good guys triumph over the bad guys, where the mystery is solved and you’ve got your Sherlock Holmes and your Dr. Watson. Because have you seen the news lately? Yeah, I need some stories where pure good triumphs over evil, where people freak out at the concept of rubber tires and the telephone, and where the story of the day isn’t doom and gloom and horror. Just, you know, murder. But fun, because it’s not real. And because it was the 19th century. In Britain. And not real. Well, except Jack the Ripper, those were real but...you know.

Here’s a summary of the first nine books in the sereies:

BOOK 1 - Some Danger Involved: Your average detective enquiry agent-duo origin story featuring brilliant detective and his new snarky Welsh sidekick!

BOOK 2 - To Kingdom Come: Barker & Llewelyn go undercover and build bombs for the Irish!

BOOK 3 - The Limehouse Text: Barker & Llewelyn face big trouble in London’s 19th Century Chinatown!

BOOK 4 - The Hellfire Conspiracy: Barker & Llewelyn fight human traffickers, secret societies and such!

BOOK 5 - The Black Hand: Barker & Llewelyn fight the Italian mafia!

BOOK 6 - Fatal Enquiry: Barker & Llewelyn fight Barker’s almost comically evil arch-nemesis!

BOOK 7 - Anatomy of Evil: Barker & Llewelyn fight Jack the Ripper!

BOOK 8 - Hell Bay: Barker & Llewelyn Present: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None!

BOOK 8.5 - An Awkward Way to Die: Barker & Llewelyn solve a case in, like, 20 minutes!

BOOK 9 - Old Scores: Barker & Llewelyn Present: Japonism in Late-19th Century England!

BOOK 10 - Blood is Blood: Barker is put temporarily out of commission by an explosion! Llewelyn must solve the case himself! Who should show up to help but Barker’s long lost brother??

A little more about Blood is Blood: 

So Thomas Llewelyn is only a couple of weeks away from happily marrying his lady love, Rebecca Cowan née Moccatta. Everything is hunky-dory. And then someone tries to blow up his and Barker’s office. Barker is badly injured, leaving Thomas to investigate who tried to kill them by himself. Oh, and, same day the offices are blown up, Caleb Barker, Cyrus Barker’s long lost brother, first mentioned way back in Limehouse Text, I think, shows up. Caleb had been a major plot point in Fatal Enquiry, but then was never mentioned again until this book. He’s been living in the lawless American West, acting as a Pinkerton agent. But can he be trusted? Also, Rebecca’s family is super against her marrying a detective private enquiry agent who isn’t Jewish. Upon seeing just how dangerous the job can be, Rebecca starts having doubts. Will Thomas be unlucky in love yet again? Tune in November 13 for Blood is Blood, same bat-time, same bat channel. 

Yes, this series can, at times, be formulaic and tropey, but...fuck it, I love it. Sometimes there’s comfort to be had in a story where you know the good guys will solve the mystery, maybe picking up a few scrapes along the way. I tore through all of the books of the Barker & Llewelyn series in about two weeks, and finished Blood is Blood in about a day. I should’ve gone slower, because I need more. I need at least five more books, Will Thomas, and I needed them YESTERDAY. Aaaackgh. This is what I get for binging. How long until book 11? Will we be getting another novella soon? And when are we going to meet Thomas's family?! 10 books and we've never met his parents or any of his nine siblings! I want a whole book dedicated to Thomas reconciling with his family and he and Barker and Mac running all around Wales. I NEED IT. 

Write faster, Will Thomas. 

Predictably, after a book binge such as this, my eyes now hurt pretty badly. Time to invest in those fancy eye drops my optometrist keeps telling me to buy.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone needing an escape from the awful world we live in now.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: People who think everything’s fine for some reason. You know. This guy:

OVERALL SERIES RATING: 4.5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED VICTORIAN MYSTERY / MURDERINO FANGIRL RATING: 5/5

BLOOD IS BLOOD RATING: 4/5

RELEASE DATE: November 13, 2018

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES: Olympus Mons

[therealdragonnerdagain]

To the people who wanna talk shit about this blog in the forums . . .

Couple years ago, I said that Mass Effect 3 would have been perfect if not for that shitty ending.

I said that because I would have been willing to overlook the garbage that was in the rest of the game if the ending hadn't been such shit.

But anyone who actually read most of my Mass Effect 3 posts here would know that I complained A LOT about the whole of Mass Effect 3 -- specifically Shep's auto-dialogue, the botched Mass Effect 2 romances, and Kai Fucking Leng.

Mass Effect 3 also had some really gross stuff in it, like FemShep taking advantage of her rank to basically rape Vega (because I guess the writers thought male rape was funny) and all this other shit.

Yeah. Mass Effect 3 had its fair share of problems. The Ending was just the icing on an already sour cake.

Also, I understand what a "protagonist" is, asswipes who love talking shit about this blog.

I didn't mean that Solas was actually the protagonist. I meant that he stole so much of the story, he might as well have been the protagonist.

This was done to the point that Corypheus wasn't our enemy, he was Solas' enemy -- we and Corypheus just didn't fucking know it.

This was done to the point that it was never our Inquisition -- it was Solas' Inquisition. This is something the Inquisitor can even SAY during Tresspasser "Was it ever MY Inquisition?" Of course, Solas denies that he was ever really in charge, but he was in the background pulling a lot of strings, even if he didn't have the final say.

Also, people are saying Solas won't even be important in DA4, so we Solasmancers should stop bitching.

Well, if Solas isn't important, then why weren't we given the option to deal with him in Trespasser and end his story there?

We are given the option to murder knife, join, or spare Morrigan and Anders (the other "evil" apostates) but we are not given the option to deal with Solas in a similar fashion? That's bullshit.

And if Solas isn't that important, it will just be a symptom of yet more sloppiness on Bioware's part.

See, all this happened because

1) Bioware did not have a plan from the beginning. They didn't plan for this series to be more than one game, then couldn't decide whether or not to bring the Warden back -- because some people had a dead Warden (myself included).

They got around this by inventing Hawke, who was then supposed to pick up the rest of the series as the main protagonist, leading the Inquisition and so forth.

But things changed AGAIN. Probably because lots of fans didn't like being forced to play a predefined, human character. Dragon Age 2 was nothing like the first game we all loved. Dragon Age 2 was basically Pseudo Final Fantasy, with it's own Cloud (Fenris) and everything.

So Bioware tried to go back to its roots with Inquisition, scrapping Hawke as the protagonist and inventing the Inquisitor, yet ANOTHER human noble character.

People didn't like being forced to play another human noble. Most of us (myself included) got into this series because we loved choosing who we were. I have always identified with oppressed outsiders (because I am an oppressed outsider) so I always play elves. I did not wnat to play a human again.

Bioware listened and added multiple races, but by then it was too late: the series had become a butchered clusterfuck, a thin shadow of what it had been.

2) The second reason all this happened? EA thought it would be great to take an rpg with depth and maturity and water it down into some streamlined mess. Somehow, they equated butchering a story with appealing to a wider audience and gaining more money.

So we have this MESS before us today that is Dragon Age (god, I fucking HATE EA), where every protagonist after the Warden has a clusterfuck story where they never defeat their own arch-nemesis and instead pass them off to some other hero.

I'm sorry, but Solas DOES belong to the Inquisitor as a villian. Just as Corypheus *really* belonged to Hawke (because Inquisition was originally a continuation of Hawke's story).

Just as we would have been pissed had Hawke stepped in at the last minute to kill the archdemon, thus stealing the Warden's enemy (who we worked so HARD to defeat) from them.

The Inquisitor is *not* coming back as a protagonist. Bioware has denied the arm has anything to do with it (they don't want to look ableist but being anti-indigenous is fine and dandy!) but no matter the reason, the Inquisitor's story is over and they are not going to be the protagonist anymore.

This means I don't get to end Solas' story as the Inquisitor.

That SUCKS.

That's like . . . ending Morrigan's story as Hawke, even though I romanced Morrigan in the game before and had history with her (and I did on two playthroughs romance Morrigan, so I waited for Witch Hunt just like everyone else).

That's like . . . ending Anders' story as the Inquisitor, even though Hawke had personal history (including betrayal) with him.

Remember what it was like after DA2 dropped? Remember all the gamers who HATED Anders and were foaming at the mouth about his betrayal? Imagine for one SECOND if they were not given the option to deal with Anders as Hawke and he instead carried over to Inquisition? As will Nerd Rage, the outrage would have been perpetual and unending.

And yet, I, a Solasmancer, am expected to just accept the way the story was handled, without criticizing it or even lamenting it. I, a Solasmacer, am expected to just . . . quietly accept something I don't like.

I suppose Nerd Rage is purely reserved for straight white homophobic dudes who want to kill Anders because he hit on them once.

Why are Solasmancers ridiculed and mocked for wanting to end Solas' story AS Lavellan? Why in FUCK is that such a god-awful thing?

It pisses me off because I already decided -- long before Trespasser was released -- that I would no longer be buying anymore Dragon Age games. Their anti-indigenous hate-screed (on top of the over-all sad dumbing down of the game into an MMORPG) had already convinced me to quit the series. So learning that my character would not get a proper ending to her story until the next game was beyond annoying.

But whatever. Go on mocking me on fextralife and bsn and whatever forum you like.

What I can't understand is why people even pay attention to my blog. I am just one fan ranting bitterly to myself about how a video game disappointed me.

I'm just one fan. I'm not hurting anyone.

And I'm allowed to have whatever fucking reaction I want to these games.

I'm allowed to have an opinion.

Hard to wrap your head around, I know.

EDIT: And to Steel Can.

I have watched for years as you behaved on the forums like a racist asshat about people of color, hiding behind your hatred of the Dalish to justify it. I wish you’d just shut the living fuck UP.

NO. The Dalish don't expect nor force city elves to worship their gods when they join them. Play a Dalish in Origins sometime. You might actually learn something -- not that you care to learn that you’re wrong. 

You're trying so DESPERATELY to justify the religious oppression of the elves. You're trying so DESPERATELY to justify the shitty way Lavellan was treated for her beliefs by everyone in the game -- even her friends -- by building false equivalences (the white man’s favorite passtime) and pretending the elves are just as bad as the humans.

But they're not. This is something Manifest Destiny, racist white men, would have you believe. They need you to believe it in order to justify history’s crimes. They need you to believe that indigenous people were violent savages who warred upon each other, so this made it “okay” and even “good for them” to be invaded, enslaved, and oppressed. 

I mean, it’s not like white people didn’t treat the Irish and the Scottish like garbage or anything. White people were always good to each other. They never tortured each other in dungeons and beheaded each other over loaves of bread . . .

Dalish elves were not forcing anyone to their religion when they joined their camps. Pol never gets vallalsin in the ten years he’s with the Dalish. Because he doesn’t have to. When you meet him in Origins. he is being taught to hunt and survive. The Dalish Warden tells him to just make himself useful, and he is welcome. No religious conversion required. He is not forced into elven religion.

And even if Pol was forced:

Nothing can justify what was done to the elves. 

Nothing can justify imperialism, invasion, genocide, cultural genocide, and slavery.

Just as nothing can justify what was done to real indigenous people. 

I bet you hated the Thalmor in Skyrim and sided with the Stormcloaks to protect their religion even while hating the Dalish -- a people facing religious oppression -- in Dragon Age. Because only white men are allowed to have cultural, religious freedom, and any culture that’s not white isn’t worthy of respect, right?

But why am I wasting my time, Steel Can? Your sorry racist ass will never understand. You enjoy shitting on real indigenous people and using Dragon Age to justify it. Because Bioware's racism gave you the tools to do so.

That does not make you or Bioware right.

Also, Red Crossing started when two HUMANS killed an elven woman while trespassing on Dalish land.

[aeon-wolf]

Fuck You And Fight Me

Based on prompt: 

Imagine that your OTP of mortal enemies are fighting furiously and Person A is trying to scream “fuck you” and “fight me” at the same time and ends up screaming “fuck me” really loud at Person B in front of all of their friends and everyone else and it gets really quiet until Person B goes “why not” and kisses A.

Read it here on AO3

Honestly. Kara Danvers didn’t know who she pissed off to get an arch nemesis. Well, she did. But it didn’t make her any more frustrated. In all honesty, it was tiring. Only about twenty percent of her time was dedicated to actually helping people anymore. The other eighty percent was all about said arch nemesis, Lena Luthor.

And Lena didn’t even seem to have some top secret, ultra evil plan like her brother had once had. Clark had often told Kara that Lex Luthor was an evil, though brilliant criminal mastermind. And when the younger Luthor had apparently taken it upon herself to keep Supergirl on her toes, Clark had told Kara to be wary. Lena was a Luthor. She was bound to be just as evil and just as brilliant as her brother.

Kara had to admit that Lena seemed just as brilliant as her brother. More so sometimes. Because Lena was in possession of technology that even Kara and the DEO had never seen, lightyears ahead of anything Lex had ever created. Her exosuit, for instance, was far more sophisticated than the bulky and clunky one of her brother. Though that may have been chalked up to personal preference than an inability on Lex’s part.

But Lena Luthor didn’t seem evil. She wasn’t hell bent on destroying Supergirl. Or taking over the world. Or even National City. In fact, whenever Lena and Kara went head to head, the villainess seemed to be toying with Kara rather than really doing any damage to her. Kara knew that with Lena’s intelligence she could easily come up with a weapon to do far more damage than Lena had ever actually done to her.

Sure, Lena had gotten more than a few good punches in, that, if Kara could bruise, would have been black and blue the next morning. Probably would have broken a few bones too. But the Luthor had never done any actual damage to her. Nothing that was permanent. And that’s really what puzzled Kara. And what frustrated her. It seemed like Lena, while her proclaimed arch nemesis by the press, was teasing her.

That smirk that was plastered on her face whenever they met. The seductive tone of her voice, goading her into making the first move. The slight Irish accent that Kara couldn’t help but notice would slip out once in awhile when Lena was in the heat of the moment. How up close and personal Lena would get when fighting. Instead of firing on Kara from a distance, she always chose to get right up in Kara’s face, despite the increased danger.

And Kara was also frustrated with herself. She knew all of this information about Lena Luthor but somehow always failed to catch her. The woman always escaped her grasp before getting caught. Hence why this time, she brought back up. She wasn’t going to let her arch nemesis get away this time.

Kara, begrudgingly, had brought along James and Mon-El, in addition to her normal help from Alex. Winn and Hank were back at the DEO trying to help her from there, feeding her information about Lena’s tech specs on her suit. Winn always was admiring Lena’s engineering skills from afar. Always complimenting whatever new feature Lena used in her suit. He also was glad that she moved away from the green and purple to a black suit with some of the trim and components being the signature Luthor green and purple. But it was a far more flattering and tasteful color scheme as Winn always pointed out.

“C’mon Super, you’re not tiring out on me, are you?” Lena mocked Kara. Kara gritted her teeth. “You know, it’s cute. You had to bring your boy toys as back up. I mean, I’ve never known a Super to need a sidekick. Your cousin always works alone. You going soft on me?” Lena teased, raising an eyebrow. Kara then felt Mon-El rush past Kara towards Lena. He obviously hadn’t taken kindly to being called a sidekick. Or was it the boy toy comment? Kara didn’t know.

Lena just chuckled, catching Mon-El on the shoulder. The Daxamite, and indeed Kara herself, was surprised at Lena’s speed and strength, being able to stop a speeding Daxamite. But she wasn’t done yet. She let a knife jut out from one of her gauntlets, shoving it into Mon-El’s shoulder. The male yelped in pain before falling to the floor. Kara looked stunned while Lena just smirked.

“Nice try Super. Lead lined syringe. Handy for dealing with Daxamites. Nothing fatal of course, but he’s going to have one hell of a headache in the morning. James went to rush forward but Kara held him back.

“Guardian, don’t.” She said sharply.

“But Supergirl, you can’t…” Kara cut him off. She knew his heart was in the right place, but she didn’t want to think what Lena could do to a human if she so easily took down a Daxamite.

“Cute. I’d listen to her, Guardian.” Lena said, nearly spitting out his name. “She’s just trying to save you a bit of a headache later.” The raven haired woman shrugged. Kara’s eyes narrowed, her frustration with Lena’s teasing coming to a head. She sped towards Lena whose eyes glinted mischievously before blurring towards the hero.

The two met in the middle of the street with a bang. The force of their impact almost enough to blow James off his feet. Alex took cover in a nearby alley. “Be careful Supergirl.” She said into her com, Winn back at the DEO voicing the same concerns.

Kara scowled, looking into Lena Luthor’s green eyes. The two had been fighting for a good few months now, but she hadn’t actually been close enough for long enough to really get a good look at some of the details of Lena’s face. If she wasn’t so annoyed at the villain she would have said the younger Luthor was quite the attractive woman.

Instead, she pushed Lena’s shoulders, trying to force the woman back onto her knees, but Lena’s exosuit allowed her to be able to only lose a little bit of footing, even though Kara was using a moderate amount of her strength. Kara tried to press an advantage, utilizing more of her power, trying to get Lena to submit. But ever the graceful woman, Lena slipped out from under Kara’s grip with ease, jumping back a little bit, the teasing look on her face again. “You’re going to have to try better than that Super.”

Kara furrowed her brow and frowned. She swore that whenever the two got close enough to really have a one on one fight, Lena always bailed. Kara’s frustration and anger at both the villain and herself was growing to this moment and she supposed she really should have kept her mouth shut. But looking at the infuriating woman in front of her while James, Alex, Winn, and Hank were all running their mouths about being careful, potential strategies to take her out and the like, Kara finally snapped.

“Fuck me,” Kara screamed before her eyes widened at what she actually screeched, covering her mouth with both hands. All of her friends immediately silenced, a little in shock at what she had just said. Kara was so frustrated with Lena always running off and her infuriating attitude that Kara had tried to start out with fuck you. But then decided against using expletives after the word was actually out of her mouth and intended to change her words to fight me.

A typical Kara Danvers move. Tripping over her own words.

The young Luthor actually threw her head back and let out a loud laugh after processing what the Super had actually yelled at her. “Well, I didn’t know you felt that way about me Super,” She slowly sauntered over to Kara who was still in shock of what had come out of her mouth that she couldn’t do anything but watch Lena’s approach her.

She leaned in and whispered, “But I think we should go on a date before we get to that step yet. But I suppose it would be rude of me to completely ignore your request,” Lena teased, pulling Kara’s hands away from her mouth, grasping them tightly so Kara couldn’t escape. And then the Luthor smashed her lips against Kara’s. And the Kryptonian’s brain short circuited. She was being kissed by one Lena Luthor, her arch nemesis Lena Luthor. And Kara couldn’t help but not be repulsed by it.

In fact, it was rather nice. And as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Lena winked at the dumbfounded superhero. “Until next time Super. I’ll be in touch. I’m enjoying our game of cat and mouse,” Lena said cheekily before flying off, leaving Kara trying to regain her composure on the street. Not exactly sure at what had just happened.